Hugh Jennings

Hugh Jennings was born in Minnesota, but moved to Seattle in 1949 to start a 38 year career as an Aeronautical Engineer with Boeing Military & Space divisions.  After retiring from Boeing, Hugh was visited in May of 1988 by his brother-in-law, Paul Steel. Paul worked for the US Fish & Wildlife and was an excellent naturalist and birder. While he was here, Paul & Hugh birded eastern WA and the Olympic Peninsula. Hugh said he really enjoyed birding with Paul who was a meticulous record keeper. He credits Paul with instilling his interest in birds and mentoring him on many subsequent birding trips in New Mexico, Arizona, Texas and Florida.

Paul encouraged Hugh to get involved in the local Audubon chapter, so he and Bev joined ELWAS (now Eastside Audubon) in 1989 and started going on field trips and enjoying chapter meetings. After five years of going on Monday Morning Hotspots trips with Jim Ganley and learning a lot more about birds from him, Jim convinced Hugh to take over the Hotspots trips. In 1995, Jeff Howard resigned as Field Trip Chairman, Hugh took over, and has continued in that capacity ever since then.

Our chapter continues to offer several field trips each month led by a group of fine leaders. Hugh usually leads two of these trips every month. Hugh is also responsible for posting the field trip highlights for each birding field trip on the website. 

During the Christmas Bird Count, area leader Hugh and his team cover one of the eight 15-mile diameter count circles. As the CBC Committee chair for Eastside Audubon, he is responsible for compiling the data for all eight areas and submitting it to the National Audubon. Hugh also leads a Bellevue area part of the Seattle Audubon CBC.

Eastside Audubon has completed more than 40 wildlife surveys of city, county and state parks and other areas. Hugh has been involved in most of the surveys. These detailed surveys are done once a month for a year by two to six people. The results are sent to the applicable agency.  Hugh is responsible for posting the bird survey data on the Eastside Audubon website so it is accessible to anyone who wants to use it.

Thank you, Hugh, for your invaluable work for the birds for the last fourteen years.